THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 3, January 1, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DRIVING U.S. FAMILIES INTO FUEL POVERTY:
Will America Learn in Time from the Price
Being Paid by British Companies & Families?
By Niger Innis, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez,
& Amy Frederick
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT, & U.S. ENERGY & ECONOMIC POLICY: ARE
AMERICANS DESTINED TO FACE RAPIDLY RISING ENERGY PRICES, SEVERE ENERGY SHORTAGES, & A CONTINUALLY
WEAKENING ECONOMY? THE INTENTION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY & THE U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF THE INTERIOR TO (1) IMPOSE COSTLY, JOB-KILLING, ECONOMY-STRANGLING NEW FEDERAL RULES & REGULATIONS ON
AMERICA'S ENERGY PRODUCERS & (2) IMPLEMENT MORE FEDERAL LAND-GRABS THAT WILL LOCK UP ADDITIONAL
MILLIONS OF ACRES & MORE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF U.S. ENERGY -- EXECUTIVE & ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS DESIGNED
TO END THE HYDROCARBON & NUCLEAR ERA IN THE U.S.A. & FORCE US TO CONVERT TO "RENEWABLE" ENERGY -- POLICIES
THAT ARE LIKELY TO SUBJECT AMERICANS TO THE SAME DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES WHICH BRITISH COMPANIES &
SUBJECTS ARE SUFFERING, IN THE WAKE OF OBSTINATE CLIMATE CHANGE, FOSSIL FUEL, & RENEWABLE ENERGY LAWS
FULL STORY:
The Obama administration still hasn't gotten the message voters sent Washington on November 2, 2010.
The lame duck session and 111th. Congress finally ended, without the White House getting key items on its wish list. So,
now, the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department intend to impose costly, job-killing,
economy-strangling new rules for power plants and refineries, and implement more land-grabs that will lock up additional
millions of acres and more billions of dollars of American energy.
Their goal is to end the hydrocarbon and nuclear era in America – and force us to convert to “renewable” energy.
Contrary to clear voter mandates and consumer needs, they are using regulations and executive edicts to slash carbon
dioxide emissions, impose “clean energy standards,” halt onshore and offshore drilling, and hobble the vehicles, electrical
generating plants, and factories that are the backbone of our nation’s economy, jobs, and living standards.
EPA Administrator Lisa Perez Jackson claims these actions are needed to ensure “environmental justice” for poor and
minority families threatened by “man-made global warming.” Meanwhile, the United States and entire Northern Hemisphere
are enduring yet another nasty Winter, marked by early snow storms and record cold temperatures. Some scientists say the
Earth could be entering another prolonged period of cooler temperatures.
Businesses, workers, and families face “fuel poverty,” injustice, bankruptcy, and worse at the hands of their government, if
this regulatory power grab continues.
The Congressional Research Service says average U.S. households will pay almost $1000 this Winter just for heat. That’s
average: Alaska to Florida, Hawaii to New York. Northern states residents will pay double or triple that. Businesses,
schools, and hospitals will also be driven into fuel poverty.
In Cobb County, Georgia, hundreds shivered outside to apply for heating assistance from a welfare agency that may not
have enough money for every family that needs help. Along the Canadian border, in St. Lawrence County, New York, over
8,000 households were approved for heating aid by cash-strapped local, county, and state governments that wonder where
the money will come from – while Albany has blocked drilling for shale gas that could fuel homes and power plants, and
generate billions in revenue.
Even worse, all this is before the Feds actually implement more of the job-killing, family-freezing CO2 limits and other
plans they are contemplating. To see what’s in store for millions of American businesses and families, one need only
look at the planet’s one country that is still actually and obstinately plowing ahead to meet its climate change and
renewable energy goals, regardless of the costs.
Across Great Britain, household energy bills could double by 2020, to $3,900 (£2,500) a year, market expert Mark Todd,
of EnergyHelpLine.com has warned. Gasoline prices are likewise climbing to unaffordable levels, and the majority of
United Kingdom companies will see their natural gas and electricity prices skyrocket by 100% between 2012 and 2016 –
on top of a carbon tax bill of “at least” $65,660 (£42,000) annually – according to the analytical firm, Carbon Masters.
Moreover, most of Britain’s older coal-fired and nuclear power plants are scheduled to be shut down, with almost
nothing to replace them, even as electricity demand rises. That will increase the danger of widespread blackouts, said
the Daily Mail, and cause hundreds of thousands UK jobs to be outsourced to countries where energy costs are
much lower, and air pollution and carbon dioxide emission standards far less stringent. That will hardly improve
England’s economy or global environmental quality.
Far worse, more than 5.5 million households will be plunged into “fuel poverty” by early 2011 – forced to spend more
than 10% of their family incomes on energy – National Energy Action and other charities said. That’s over one-fifth of
all UK households and a huge increase from 4.5 million families in 2008. Most in these households are over age 60, but
working families are also struggling to keep the heat on, as prices soar.
Nearly 28,000 people died in Britain last Winter, most of them pensioners who could not afford adequate heat. Charities
say this is the highest Winter death rate in northern Europe, worse even than much colder nations like Finland and
Sweden. And this Winter has already seen the coldest December night for Wales in 169 years of record keeping.
Britain is on track to having its coldest December in a century.
To stay warm, thousands of elderly are using travel passes to ride buses all day, while others seek refuge in libraries
and shopping centers, the Sunday Express noted. Others are “putting their health at risk, in an attempt to keep
costs down,” by bundling up and turning the heat down or off entirely, said Age UK Charity Director Michelle
Mitchell.
Now, amid the Christmas and New Year holiday, two million homes, schools, and hospitals face fuel rationing. Some
families could wait weeks before they can get their fuel oil tanks refilled, as more snow falls across Great Britain.
Meanwhile, the British government has cut funding for its Warm Front heating assistance program from $470 million
this year to $172 million in 2011, Consumer Focus campaigner Jonathan Stearn angrily noted. And, because the winds
barely blow during the coldest weather, Britain’s “shiny new green” turbines were able to supply only “one-500th of
the exceptionally large demand” for electricity during the frigid weather of early December, Sunday Times
columnist Dominic Lawson ruefully observed.
That’s a tiny fraction of the wind turbines’ “rated capacity.” But it is a situation commonly faced with turbines on
freezing Minnesota Winter nights and sweltering Texas Summer afternoons, when they average a measly 10% of the
electricity output their subsidy-hungry backers say they are capable of.
Is this what Lisa Jackson would call “environmental justice”? How do her actions, notions of “justice,” and
government-driven energy price spikes square with a 2009 poll by Wilson Research Strategies? It found that 56% of
blacks think politicians and bureaucrats setting climate change policy in Washington fail to consider economic and
quality of life concerns in the black community. Fully 76% are unwilling to pay more than $50 a year more for
electricity, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Northern U.S. Winters are far worse than even record-setters in Britain. Why would anyone want to impose costly
and nightmarish energy and environmental policies on American families, rich or poor?
The outgoing Congress nearly enacted a bill that would have provided a much needed congressional check on EPA
actions. The Murkowski bill fell just short in a Senate dominated by partisan Democrats. The incoming Senate should
be far more supportive of such legislation, especially in the face of EPA and other attempts to override the will of
Congress and the American people.
The Affordable Power Alliance will urge the new Congress to honor its constitutional duties and prevent the Obama
administration from imposing excessive regulations inspired by extreme ideologies. The 112th Congress, including
Democrats up for reelection in 2012, needs to heed the overwhelming public demand that America’s economy no
longer be held hostage by an elitist network of environmentalists – even if that environmentalist network includes
the President of the United States.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Niger Innis is national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, a 68-year-old human rights organization; Rev.
Samuel Rodriguez is President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic
Christian organization, with 25,434 member churches; Amy Frederick is President of 60 Plus, a senior citizens
advocacy organization representing over 500,000 seniors nationwide. The three are co-chairs of the Affordable
Power Alliance, a humanitarian coalition of civil rights, minority, small business, senior citizen, and faith-based
organizations that champion access to affordable energy: www.AffordablePowerAlliance.org
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity